When the army was voted, General Conway took notice that though the House was voting so large an addition, yet no method was taken for raising men. He hinted at several plans, particularly for levying German Protestants; and he observed how much the militia, become the favourite of several Lords, engrossed the best recruits; his own nephew, Lord Beauchamp, often gave thirty or forty pounds for a sergeant from the Guards for his own regiment. Sir Gilbert Elliot, after the debate, remarked that Conway had only clashed with his nephew, his friends, and the Minister. Grenville often said, that he had rather have Conway against him than for him, as then he knew all the hurt Conway could do to him. He was, it is true, too great a refiner; but what he thought right was always his guide, unless when his judgment was warped by paying too much regard to the good opinion of men—blemishes that, like the small spots of ermine, were only striking from the purity of the ground, and from the extreme rarity of ground so pure. The hues of Elliot and Grenville were not of such unsullied white. Conway had now been trying to drive Lord Barrington to embrace some plan, and had hinted many to the King, who never took any further notice of them, it being his Majesty’s rule, as Lord Holland had formerly told me, never to talk to any man but on the business of his department; and Conway, though the deepest master of his profession in the island, happened not to be secretary! That silly caution had been infused into the King by the Princess and Lord Bute, lest it should give the person consulted an opportunity of gaining his confidence, by launching out beyond their province: every audience terminated when each minister had received his orders. To decline receiving information from so able an officer as Conway, and one whom he knew and had declared so disinterested and unambitious, was not the method of rendering himself proper to conduct the army; and Lord Barrington was too ignorant beyond the routine of office to instruct, and too servile to contradict him. General Edward Harvey, the other royal confidant in military matters, was a mere disciplinarian, and not feared by the junto, being of no abilities or importance.
On the 10th of December was great expectation of some solemn scene, Lord Mansfield having given notice to the Lords on the 7th, that he had matter of importance to lay before them. It was supposed that he intended to make his defence against all the late accusations. Though that did not prove entirely the case, the day turned out very remarkable. The House was crowded with members of the Commons, with strangers, and even foreigners. Lord Mansfield produced and delivered to the clerk a paper, containing the determination made by himself and the four other judges of the King’s Bench, on Woodfall’s demand of a new trial, which they had refused to grant, and the reasons for which refusal they had read, as their decree, in court. This decree, he said, having been mentioned in that House with indirect blame, and much misrepresented to the public, he had brought that account to be perused by their Lordships, who, if they pleased, might take copies of it. He made no motion, nor desired any notice to be taken of his paper, which he delivered to the clerk. Lord Chatham, in commending his candour in submitting his conduct to examination, excepted against the mode, and threw out many oblique censures. Lord Camden also, not approving the manner, said, he supposed Lord Mansfield did not mean to have the paper entered in the journals; to which Lord Mansfield answering he did not, the affair broke off, and Lord Camden went away.
The Duke of Manchester then rose to make a motion, and opening on the defenceless state of the nation, mentioned the four ships sent to Gibraltar, and obliged to return from being in too bad condition to proceed. He was going on, but was called to order by Lord Gower, who said those points were not fit to be divulged to the public and to foreign ministers; and insisted on the House being cleared of strangers, which, by the standing orders of both Houses, any member may do in the House to which he belongs, and which cannot be refused; but Lord Gower, entering into debate, which no man may do when he calls another to order, he was called to order himself; the Duke of Richmond adding, that the Ministry did not dare to hear their faults laid open. Prodigious confusion ensued; and Lord Chatham, in a violent emotion of rage, insisted on being heard, which was impossible from the tumult; and he would have distinguished between the occasion and the general standing order, which, he maintained Lord Gower had had no right to call for, as the subject had not been the order of the day; but he was wrong—and the majority called out violently to have the order put in execution: but the members of the other House refused to retire, Dowdeswell declaring he would be the last man that should go out. This resistance was unjustifiable, and without example. Four other commoners, who had brought up a bill from the other House, said they were come with a message, and had a right to be there; but they too were in the wrong, for the rule is, that they should give notice to the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, and he, acquainting the Lords, is sent to call the messengers to the bar, which had not been done. However, the servants of the House of Lords were forced to thrust out the Commons by violence, while Lord Chatham, roaring in vain and unregarded, walked out of the House in a rage, and the Court Lords continuing to call out “Clear the House! clear the House!” the Duke of Richmond cried out aloud, “So you will of every honest man!” and followed Lord Chatham, as did the Dukes of Bolton, Manchester, Portland, Devonshire, Northumberland, the Marquis of Rockingham, the Earls of Huntingdon, Abingdon, Fitzwilliam, Viscount Torrington, and the Lords Abergavenny, Archer, Besborough, Shelburne, and Milton. Lord Lyttelton was not present: Lord Hardwicke remained with the courtiers.[126]
The members of the Commons went down in a fury to their own House; Burke and the opponents rejoicing in an opportunity of endeavouring to make a breach between the two Houses. George Onslow of the Treasury, a noisy, indiscreet man, who sometimes did well recollect his father’s inflexible maintenance of the dignity of the Commons, but whose connections should not have led him to encourage the opponents in setting the two Houses at variance, made complaint of the injurious manner in which they had been thrust out by force, and moved for a Committee to inspect the journals of the Lords on that occasion, the only regular manner of coming at the proceedings, for the House of Lords being a court of record, their journals are open to the public, which is not the case with the other House. Lord North, to humour the Commons, joined in the blame, but dissuaded the motion. It was battled, however, for two hours; and some Lords who had come thither, were turned out: but the motion was rejected by the influence of the courtiers.[127]
The same day General Conway laid before the House a plan for adding a thousand men to the regiment of artillery on a cheap scheme of 17,000l., which, if executed in the ordinary method, would have cost 24,000l. Hearing that they would oppose it, he had sent his plan to Lord George (Sackville) Germaine and Colonel Barré, but both returned it with compliments, the first saying he should only make some objections to the mode; the other that he should not oppose it. They both now did make some objections; and others of the Opposition blamed Conway for not having digested more plans for the army. Conway answered that he had done his duty in his office, but was not consulted beyond it, nor in any confidence. This was a declaration they wished. T. Townshend the younger and others exclaimed on his not being trusted! What could the country expect, they said, if such a man, and at the head of his profession, was in no confidence with the Ministers? Conway replied, he had not complained, nor did he complain; he had stated the fact, and was content with the confidence placed in him by his master. His plan was adopted.
On the 11th, the seceding Lords returned to their House, and fourteen entered a protest against their being impeded from proceeding the day before.
Lord Camden then severely resumed Lord Mansfield’s conduct in delivering the paper, which, in fact, was universally condemned as timid, wanting dignity, and narrowed to a single case, when many more accusations were stirring against him. The proceeding itself, Lord Camden said, was most irregular, and the substance of the paper deserving particular reprehension. He had considered the paper with the utmost care, but had found it unintelligible. That if taken in one sense of the words, he understood, and should agree to it: but there was another obvious to which the words were liable; and if taken in that sense, he would pledge himself to the House to prove them illegal and unconstitutional; and therefore he must desire to put to his Lordship some interrogatories.[128]
Lord Mansfield, with most abject soothings, paid the highest compliments to Lord Camden, and declared how much he had always courted his esteem; and therefore from his candour had not expected that treatment. He professed he had studied the point more than any other in his life, and had consulted all the judges on it, except indeed his Lordship: but that he must object to being taken by surprise, nor could he submit to answer interrogatories. “Interrogatories!” cried Lord Chatham, starting up, “was ever anything heard so extraordinary? is it taking that noble lord by surprise who has just declared that he has studied the point all his life, and has taken the opinions of all the judges on it? And of all mankind does it become that Lord to refuse interrogatories, who has so recently imprisoned a man [Brindley] for a year or two, for refusing to submit to them?” But the point, he gave the noble Lord notice should be fathomed, and he would bring it to issue. However, he would give his Lordship time, and would let the matter sleep till after the holidays: but he insisted that Lord Camden’s paper of interrogatories should be left with the clerk, as Lord Mansfield’s had been; which the House could not refuse.
The dismay and confusion of Lord Mansfield was obvious to the whole audience; nor did one peer interpose a syllable in his behalf; even the Court (whom he had been serving by wresting the law, and perverting it to the destruction of liberty, and his guilt in which practices was proclaimed by his dastard conscience) despised his pusillanimity and meanness; for to avert the indignation of the other side, he had declared in his speech that he was not attached to the Ministry, nor had any obligations to the King. Lord Frederic Campbell, his friend, but hurt at his wretched shuffling, told me, the persecution had been stirred up by Mansfield’s own tool and associate Sir Fletcher Norton, who hoped it would drive him to give up the vast post of Chief Justice, to which Norton, despairing of the great Seal, flattered himself he should succeed.
So much consciousness of guilt on Lord Mansfield’s part, with so much inveteracy on Lord Chatham’s, promised a scene worthy of the public attention. Will it be believed that not a word more was said on the subject, either when the Parliament reassembled after the holidays, or during the whole remainder of the session? At the end of April, I asked the Duke of Richmond the meaning of that silence; he gave me this solution:—“Early in the session Constantine Phipps told Mr. Dowdeswell that he intended to move for an inquiry into the conduct of the judges relative to juries. Dowdeswell said it would be best to have a meeting upon it. ‘No,’ said Phipps, ‘I do not like meetings: men are often borne down at them against their opinions. I will give notice of my intention without further concert.’ Serjeant Glynn said he would do the same the next day. Dowdeswell told him there was not time for concert: it would be like the Minister reading the King’s speech at the cockpit, after it has been settled. Glynn, however, gave his notice. On that the Rockingham party determined to act for themselves, and drew up a bill to ascertain what directions judges should give to juries. They showed it to Lord Chatham after he had attacked Lord Mansfield. He disapproved it much, but offered to support it if they would make it more personal to Lord Mansfield. They refused.[129] All they meant, they said, was prospect, not retrospect: as if branding a crime committed, were not a better guard than a provision against committing it. Then he must be against them, said Lord Chatham. They consulted Lord Camden. He told them Lord Chatham had driven him into the attack on Lord Mansfield, which he did not like, and in which at last he declared he would meddle no farther:[130] he did not care to have all the twelve judges against him. When the Rockinghams moved their bill, Dunning, Lord Shelburne, and the rest of Lord Chatham’s connection were strongly against them.”